Longtime residents recall fight for justice

For more than 20 years, Lonnie Douglas worked to challenge injustice in South Bend.

As director of the city's Human Rights Commission, he has been called a crusader, educator and community organizer. At heart, he is an unassuming and untiring human rights activist.

"My job is not in this office; it's in the community," he said. "Every morning when I get up I first thank the good Lord for waking me up. Then I tell myself if I can help just one person today, then my living will not be in vain. Because as we all know, human rights and civil rights is everybody's right."

As executive director of the South Bend Human Rights Commission, his role has been to study and act upon problems that involve relationships between members of different ethnic groups, genders, nationalities and creeds as well as the disabled and families with children.

Although he is quick to say blacks in South Bend have come a long way, he acknowledges there is still work to be done.

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"There was a time when I first started, blacks were not being treated very well in stores," Douglas said. "But over the years with the help of our city leaderships, education and the changing times, things are a whole lot better than they used to be for blacks in this city."

Douglas has stayed on the job because he believes people should be treated fairly.

"For the longest time, single women and children could be thrown out on the street and nothing was done about it," he said. "Men and women could be treated unfairly on their jobs and nothing happened. But now people know that the Human Rights Commission is watching and waiting."

SOUTH BEND -- "People today don't talk to each other," Lester Townsend says. "That's why the country is in the shape it's in. Communication is everything, and because we lack it so much, our lives are a mess."

Townsend, who will celebrate his 103rd birthday on March 31, says his parents didn't have much, but they talked to their children about everything that was going on around them. They taught him respect and to work hard for what you want, because nobody is going to give you anything.

"That was way back then. But today you hear children called juvenile delinquents, but that's wrong -- it's parents' delinquency. If you don't give your child a hug, nobody else will. If you don't sit down and help a child, how can they learn? And lastly, love don't cost a dime and it should be given freely," he said.

He said he has forgotten a lot over the years, and some things are worth forgetting. But he is grateful for some of the things he has lived to see.

"I'm thankful that I have had a measure of freedom in my lifetime," he said. "That as a young man I was able to overcome the horrible signs that were posted on Division Street in South Bend back in the 1940s that said 'Hiring -- but no colored need to apply.'

"I applied anyway and earned a job," he said. "It's all about how you sell yourself."

Townsend admitted his communication skills are not the best.

"Forgetting it is like having a shoe on that hurts your feet. No one knows how that feels unless they are walking in your shoes," he said. "People say they understand, but they really don't.

"Let me tell what is one of my greatest feelings as I approach my 103rd birthday: when I hear the vice president of the United States say, 'Here comes the president,' and in walks a black man. That was worth waiting for."

Clara White thinks Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would not be happy with what's happening today.

White, 95, and her late husband, Bernard, met King in Indianapolis in the 1950s.

"When my husband introduced us, I was a little afraid," White said. "But he was such a nice man, and he really cared about people. We decided because he was so committed, we set out to try to make a difference in people's lives."

White worked as a licensed practical nurse on the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at Saint Joseph Hospital. One morning, after a long, hard shift, she and some of the other nurses went out to breakfast.

"When we got to the restaurant, the waitress wouldn't serve me. So I came back the next day and sat, the next day, too, and finally she said she would serve me.

"Rather than order, I asked her name and the names of others who refused to serve. I told her I was going to report her, and I wrote everyone's name down. She talked to her boss and eventually she served me toast and coffee. I didn't eat it, but after that, I was welcomed at the restaurant."

White believes it's the small things that make a difference and that she and her husband helped bring change to the city. But there's more to be done.

"I believe to this day Dr. King would not be happy with our country today. His dream has not been achieved totally, because there is so much hatred," she said. "We can change things, but people have to want it, and I'm not sure they really want it as badly as we did."

White says people should want things to be better for their children and this country.

"Nothing can be accomplished without hard work," she said. "If we would work as hard loving each other as we do disliking, this world would be a better place. I just keep hoping and praying for peace and change. Don't be afraid to take a stand."